


Chains of Blood

by junko



Series: Scatter and Howl [32]
Category: Bleach
Genre: M/M, way too many original characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 02:03:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4728650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Byakuya dreams of Senbonzakura; Renji tries to survive dinner with his brother and the heir.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chains of Blood

Byakuya dreamed of Senbonzakura.

In the dream, Byakuya wandered barefoot among the solitary cells. The cold, hard sensation of concrete on barefeet was vivid, as was the sound of the echoing slaps of his footfalls as he moved along corridor after corridor of barred cells. 

All at once, in the way of dreams, the landscape shifted. The ceiling disappeared and Byakuya found himself in his inner world: the ruins of a recent battlefield. Everywhere corpses lay decimated, bloody and broken. Thousands of millions of blades stuck up from each fallen body. Katana skewered bodies stretched as far as the eye could see, in every direction. The field was not entirely lifeless, however. Crows plucked eyeballs from rotting bodies, some nothing more than mummified husks in rusted samurai armor. Ants and beetles, likewise, fed on the dead. The smell of death and blood permeated the air like a fog. The sky, too, seemed soaked in blood, as the sun set low and ruddy on the horizon, surrounded by heavy, bruised purple clouds

Here there was no music, no song, only the silence of death.

Tall and proud amid the carnage stood Senbonzakura’s manifestation. Long strands of black hair fluttered in the wind. Every other part of their body remained hidden beneath armor or the plain purple outer garment. They surveyed the battlefield as though with a cool, calm eye, but Byakuya could see Senbonzakura’s chest heaving, the hand on his katana, white-knuckled and shaking from spent effort. Blood spattered every part of their armor. The blade dripped with gore.

Were they forced to clear the field each time Byakuya came here? Was the battle always the same, or was each visit a new and horrible challenge?

Byakuya wanted to run to Senbonzakura, but suddenly discovered he was wrapped from head to toe in thick, iron chains, which were, all at once, too heavy for him to move. 

This, too, was always the same, though more often than not the chains that bound him in his inner world were made of white jade and Hollow bone.

As always, the more he fought against them, the tighter the chains held him. Long ago, he’d learned that the only way not to be bound inside his inner world was to relax into his restriction, open his hands, and let go.

 _Don’t bother, master,_ Senbonzakura said softly, their thousand voices harmonizing until they became like one. _These chains are not our own._

“You’re too far away,” Byakuya said, pushing to take a step closer, only to have the chains tighten their choke hold. “Come to me.”

Senbonzakura remained upon the hillside.

“Do as I say,” Byakuya demanded.

 _It’s not disobedience that keeps me from you, my master, but prison walls._ Senbonzakura said. Flicking the blood from the katana in a practiced move, they sheathed their sword.

“No,” Byakuya said, angrily. His voice choked with emotion and the press of chains. “I want to hold you. I must.”

Senbonzakura lifted their hands and pressed hard against an invisible barrier. They put their shoulder into it, shoving desperately against the immovable emptiness between them. 

Byakuya, too, strained against his chains so hard that he began to black out. The thought of being forced from this place, from even this frustratingly distant view of Senbonzakura stopped his frantic fight. Though it was difficult to breathe, Byakuya forced himself to relax, to let go. Slowly, the chains began to loosen. Though they never left him, he could, at least, take in a deep breath.

When Byakuya opened his eyes, he saw that Senbonzakura continued to fight. “Stop,” he commanded. “It’s useless.”

_Master, no… I can--_

But, Byakuya cut them off. “No, just.... please…. Please sing to me. It would mean so much to me, if you could. I miss your voice, my friend.”

Though the black-faced oni mask remained unchanged, Byakuya would have sworn Senbonzakura looked surprised. _Friend?_

It was, perhaps, far too intimate a word, but here in the inner world, Byakuya found he couldn’t censor his thoughts when they came to him. “Would you prefer ‘companion’?”

 _No,_ Senbonzakura said, and once again, though it was impossible with the mask and the distance, Byakuya felt as though he sensed a brief smile, _We like the sound of ‘friend.’_

And then they took a single step closer and began to sing.

#

Dinner was just about as awkward as Renji was afraid it would be. Seichi had bowed appropriately, but when his head came up and he’d seen how young and how fine and rich Shinobu’s clothes were, he’d gone into a kind of surly funk. Seichi had been answering the heir’s questions in monosyllabic grunts ever since.

The long stretches of silence and the heir’s disappointment weighed so heavily on Renji that he finally broke. “Boring,” Renji said. “Mostly, my experience in jail was that it was terrifyingly boring.”

“When you were in jail?” Seichi and Shinobu asked in unison, though Seichi had called it ‘the clink,’ and Shinobu, ‘prison.’

“A couple of times,” Renji admitted. To Seichi, he explained, “Once in the Rukongai, but it was more of a holding pen for...uh,” he hesitated, not wanting to go into the tattoos in front of the heir, or, really even Seichi, “... punishment. Otherwise, I’ve seen the inside of a lot of guardhouses in the Gotei.”

Seichi frowned into his sake bowl. “How come you got away with just punishment? You had a fuckload more spiritual pressure than me.”

“The difference was that I wasn’t picked up by shinigami, not exactly, anyways,” Renji said. He kept glancing at Shinobu to gauge his reaction, but he was doing a Kuchiki and keeping everything off his face. “My crime was against a yakuza family, not the law of the land, per se. I mean, I guess I was marked as a thief, but--”

“Thief?” whispered Seichi, shocked.

“Marked?” Shinobu asked with a similar surprised, hissing breath. Looking back and forth between Renji’s bandana and Seichi’s, he asked, “Is that why you hide your tattoos?”

“No,” Renji blushed. Reaching up, he untied the bandana. He folded it up and set it in his lap. “These are for Zabimaru,” he said. “All of them are... now. A couple of them, well, it’s just that they didn’t exactly start out that way.”

Seichi removed his own head scarf with a dark chuckle. “Maybe if I get a dog zanpakutõ I can tell people the same thing.”

Renji started to say something in protest, but then the thought occurred to him that fate was sometimes like that. Hadn’t it been part of his luck to be born in Inuzuri, when he’d needed the body of a wild dog, a tanuki, to complete Zabimaru? “Yeah,” he said, reaching over to pat Seichi’s knee, “Maybe so.” 

“Will you be applying to Academy?” Shinobu asked Seichi.

Seichi laughed and started to say, “They don’t take criminal…,” but then he turned sharply to Renji, “Hey, how did you get in, Mr. Thief?”

“Uh, well,” Renji’s blush deepened even more, until he felt he must have steam rising out of his collar, “I couldn’t fill out the written application. So if they were supposed to ask about a criminal record, they forgot.”

“You couldn’t write?” Shinobu asked. “Could you read?”

Tugging his ear, Renji shook his head. 

“Not big priorities when you’re starving to death,” Seichi pointed out around a mouthful of rice.

Renji wanted to smack him, but Shinobu rolled with Seichi’s rudeness. “Yes, of course not. I’m sorry, I should have thought.” He dipped his head in apology. When he looked back up he said, “I suppose there were many people learning at the same time at Academy.”

“Yeah, um… no,” Renji said, tugging his collar. “Not a lot of us come up from the lowest districts. I had to learn on my own time, with tutors, after hours.” To try to lighten the mood, he turned to Seichi, “Hey, did you know monks set up schools in some districts? Rukia and I started seeing them around Thirty.”

“Nice for some,” Seichi muttered. “I bet they had shoes, too.”

It took all of Renji’s strength not to just drop his head in his hands and mutter ‘I give up.’ Shinobu seemed to feel the same way. He let out a little sigh and said, “I do hope our cousin is all right.”

“You mean among murderers and thieves like us?” Seichi snarled. “I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s more likely to be the rapist than the raped, isn’t he, Renji?”

#

Byakuya woke up to whiskers tickling his nose. “You were singing,” Ten squeaked in his feminine, weasel voice.

“Yes, I suppose I was,” Byakuya said, feeling the heavy weight of the last strains of Senbonzakura’s song leaving him. He let out a breath, not wanting to let go. “I was speaking to Senbonzakura.”

“Oh,” The weasel nosed around in the blanket and then scratched at its hind leg. It put its tiny clawed paws on Byakuya’s chest and stared quite seriously into his eyes, “You’re not a good singer.”

“Ah,” Byakuya said, feeling a bit disconcerted talking to Ten, in his weasel form, perched on his chest. His weasel body was very light, though it was difficult to tell since he always seemed to be in motion. Watching the weasel twist around was giving Byakuya a headache. “I meant to tell you that I can get you your tea, but Toda wants to fight you. Are you so fearsome that the Maggot’s Kenpachi wants to challenge you?”

The weasel let out a little huff of breath. He shook his head. “No, it’s only because I’m not allowed.”

“Not allowed?” Soi Fon had made it perfectly clear that violence was the norm inside the prison, so this suggestion surprised Byakuya.

“How would it be fair? I still have access to Yuusagi. I may be small, but I have a lot of spiritual pressure because of our connection. Like you.” The weasel lifted its nose, whiskers twitching. Then, he scrabbled closed to Byakuya’s ear and whispered, “Anyway, you know Toda just stabbed a guy in his sleep, right? He’s not a real Kenpachi. Not like your cousin, the one they sent down for treason.”

Soya Azashiro, the Eighth Kenpachi. Byakuya tried to sound disbelieving, “My cousin? My understanding that one was from the Tenka Clan.”

Ten let out a funny little hissing sound that Byakuya eventually figured out was a weasel laugh. “Spitting image of you, however. You can’t deny it. Do you suppose that’s why there’s a room upstairs with your name on it? Do they think you might have inherited his nasty power of Azashiro’s, to hear what everyone was saying? Or are they just afraid of your strength and that you one day might go rogue? How many traitors have the Kuchiki spawned, anyway? Koga was one of yours, even had your name. He’s locked away somewhere forever, too, isn’t he?”

Byakuya sat up sharply, causing Ten to tumble on to the floor. Like a cat, he landed on his feet, but his whiskers and tail twitched warily. Byakuya struggled to get his breathing under control. He could feel a tremor of reiatsu thrumming through him like a bass drum beat. 

The accusations were all true.

Kenpachi Zaraki had known about Azashiro and Koga, on that day he’d come with Gin Ichimaru of all people, to tease Byakuya about having a criminal in the family… 

So many.

So many infamous ones, no less.

The Kuchiki clan worked tirelessly to erase Azashiro and Koga from history. Azashiro’s Kuchiki blood was never discussed; Koga was never mentioned… ever. It was the deepest kind of embarrassment to have traitors and law breakers among the family of the loyal True First, the first law-enforcers.

 _You are not chained by the bonds of blood_ , Senbonzakura sang softly. _Past sinners are not our sins._

“Yet here I am,” Byakuya whispered.

For love, Senbonzakura whispered, like the wind ruffling leaves through tree branches, For love.

Byakuya took in a deep breath, relaxing the knuckle white grip he had on the blankets. “My family’s history is just that: history.”

Ten stood up on his hind legs and tilted his head. At this moment, unfortunately, Ten reminded Byakuya far more of Gin Ichimaru than Yoruichi. “Sure,” he said, and then dashing through the bars on the cell door, Ten wriggled out into the hall. “See you later. I have things to do. Oh, and what kind of book do you like?”

“Any,” Byakuya said. “Though… perhaps, yaoi?”

Ten flashed a sharp-toothed, weasley grin. “Done.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is so short. But I decided I wanted to put this up anyway, since it answers (or suggests an answer) to one of the questions of this never-ending soap. Similarly, it's chock full of my head canons about Senbonzakura and all sorts of nonsense. Hopefully, you will be amused by it, if nothing else.
> 
> Oh, and my bit about the 8th Kenpachi comes from Spirits are Forever With You, a two volume official Bleach novel by Ryohgo Narita. <http://bleach.wikia.com/wiki/Bleach:_Spirits_Are_Forever_With_You>, with supplemental fan info from: <http://bleachfanfiction.wikia.com/wiki/Soya_Azashiro_(Seireitou)>


End file.
